


A Very Sun-tanned Ghost

by Emby_M



Series: We Pry What Happiness We Can [1]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Exes, Happy Ending, Multi, Takes place about 1907, Universe Alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 12:17:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17828411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emby_M/pseuds/Emby_M
Summary: No. No -- what she'd always wanted -- Arthur, stable and easy, stable and clean, upstanding even if he kept the rough edges on him. And it was out of her hands.-Mary runs into an old friend.





	A Very Sun-tanned Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Universe alterations:  
> -Arthur never went to collect on the Downes. Other aspects of the missions remain unchanged.   
> -Hosea _almost_ dies in the bank heist, but doesn't. It scares Dutch enough that they just retire. They are on Tahiti.  
> -Dutch also gets proper rest for his concussion, in the days following the trolley crash.  
> -John and Abigail still go through most of their challenges shown in the epilogue -- Abigail and Jack still leave, they still all work as farm hands, etc. etc. but everything is a little easier with Arthur there - especially with Arthur encouraging and sometimes pushing John to do and be better.   
> -Jack is a more functional kid -- growing up with three parents, there's always someone to help him and take care of him.   
> -Sean, Kieran, Lenny, and Micah are dead. Micah was shot the same time as Lenny.

Mary Abrams, formerly Linton, nee Gillis, is in Blackwater when she sees a ghost.

At least, someone she thinks should be a ghost.

A tall ghost. A robust ghost. A very suntanned ghost.

The ghost of a man she'd wanted to elope with, years ago. When they were young, when they were older. And now, too. She'd never stopped wanting him. Her blood had never stopped singing when he was around, when he was prodding her as much as she prodded him, never getting nasty but always dishing out exactly what she'd served.

Mary Abrams sees the ghost of Arthur Morgan in the thin summery light of the day, and she goes up to it, hoping it would dispel in the sunshine.

But it doesn't.

And then-

That ghost of Arthur turns around, and that smile is all real.

He should have died a long time ago. He should have died sooner rather than later. Should have died when she heard about that robbery from her father who sneered about _Probably the Morgan boy, ah? Your Morgan boy!_ while she hushed him and her new fiance looked on with an uneasy stare.

"Oh!" Arthur says, a smile rolling onto his lips, "Mrs. Linton, what a surprise. How'd you do?"

She balks. He is golden tan, a broad smile on his lips. Just a little more stocky, well-fed for sure, his whole posture loose and open and free.

"Mrs. Linton?" He calls, grinning rogueishly, cocking an eyebrow, "Mary, c'mon, you're scaring me here."

"Oh- Arthur?" She hisses.

"Yes'm," he says, tipping his hat.

He... How do you describe it? Everything about him curls -- his thick sandy hair curls around his nape, his lips curl into a charming smile. He exudes patience and love and -- contentment.

Something she hasn't found.

Her blood not only sings, but singes in her veins. The way his shoulders are filling out that carefully-knit sweater, the pleasant scruff of a beard coming in thick-

"Arthur- what are you doing here?"

"Well, I'm out shopping, ma'am - Had a few special items I couldn't pick up in the general store. Had to come out here, take a nice long ride."

"Is that so? For uh, Dutch?"

He laughs.

"No, ma'am. That was years ago. No, Dutch and Hosea have rightly settled down on some tropical island to live the rest of their lives quietly. I don't think they're farming mangos, like they wanted to, but... you know, close enough."

"Oh-" she says. She had no idea what he's playing at, but it sounds more like he's having fun telling it at all than having her understand what he means. "That's good... so- no more gang? No more criminal activity for you?"

"No, ma'am. Gave it up when the gang disbanded. Living an honest life now."

The news comes to her too late. The singing blood stops sad in her veins, her heart sharing her moment of silence.

"That's... such a shame, Mister Morgan," she croaks, "I had- I've just recently gotten remarried. I married a very nice banker from these parts-"

"Well, congratulations!" Arthur laughs, patting her shoulder firmly, "What's the lucky boy's name?"

She's lost in the way he smiles, in the way that the news troubles him not even one iota, how unjealous and unconcerned he seems, how blase his reply -- wanted that ghost of the man she loved and loves to get angry, to show that fierceness he always had. But he doesn't.

He's just happy for her.

"Abrams," she says, lost adrift on this conversation, "Martin Abrams. He's a banker. Jamie -- his college friend had a widower older brother, and he had said 'well, i have a widowed older sister' and- we were married in March."

Arthur smiles broad. "Well, ain't that nice," he says, "I'm happy for you."

"And yourself- why here?" She balks.

He smiles a new smile. It's one she's almost familiar with -- similar to the one he smiled the first time she kissed him and meant it, the first time she'd swayed them somewhere private and secluded. It's rogueish and knowing. She always hated it, how easy he could read her.

"I'm a rancher out here. In Beecher's Hope."

That new smile -- the one that understands -- has this edge she hasn't seen on him. It makes her so so very nervous.

Arthur Morgan learned how to keep a secret from her.

"A rancher -- ah?"

"Yup. A nice little plot of land, cattle, a nice little garden next to the house. Built the house. It's homey. We have a piano and rocking chairs on the porch."

No. No -- what she'd always wanted -- Arthur, stable and easy, stable and clean, upstanding even if he kept the rough edges on him. And it was out of her hands.

"That's... nice," she manages to say.

"Would you like to walk with me, Mrs. Abrams?" He laughs, gesturing them towards the shopping district.

"Sure," she says, and takes the arm he offers.

Damn, damn, damn. The timing was all messed up. And the worst of all is there was no getting away of Martin -- she wouldn't want to, regardless, did love him, but throwing it all away for him and for this --

"Reminds me of that date we had in Saint Denis," he says.

"Yes -- though I seem to remember I had to goad you into offering your arm."

He laughs, "Sure did. Funny how things'll seem hard sometimes and easy on others."

Martin was -- nice, of course. He was very nice. Competent. A better business man than Daddy had ever been. He was a good companion and a good date and she's sure if they go the route he'll be a good father, but-

But there was nothing to compare between him and Arthur. Very practically, Martin was handsome in a meek kind of way -- Arthur was handsome enough he shines sometimes, no matter what she told him to the contrary.

Martin and her had nothing of the passion, the mad passion, the raw attraction she felt to Arthur. Nothing of the banter they shared that, when nice, was the best thing in the world to her. Nothing of the love that had kept her feeling alive and happy in arguable the hardest times of her life.

And nothing of the dependability of knowing you have someone who'll come to you if you call.

This Arthur -- would he, if she needed him?

They step into the drapers. He helps her up.

"You never did that while we were courting."

"No," he chuckles, going to the counter and to the clerk who not only knows him but knows what he's come in for and starts to pull bolts down from the walls, "It's insisted upon in the house, though. My gal's got me trained well."

His- gal.

No. No way. No way in hell had Arthur Morgan, the man who had been wrapped around her finger from the day they met, the day they met near twenty-five years back -- no way.

"Your gal? You got a gal?"

"Sure. I told you 'we' were living out here, didn't I?"

"I thought you meant friends- you? You, Arthur? The man who had been in love with one woman for twenty five years now has a gal?" She feels her voice breaking in desperation.

He looks down at her, that same subtle smile -- but no. This is different. This is a look -- of pity. This is a look of pity, and a look that was completely unimpressed.

"You were never the only one I was in love with, Mary."

Like God had smote her on the spot.

Arthur smiles again, with an edge this time. "Yeah, I got married. I married two of the best folk in this great nation, and we have a son, Jack."

"Two-?"

"Yes, two. See?" And he shows off his left hand, where two wedding bands, stacked, rest on his ring finger. "We're all married to each other. A darling, spitfire gal, and the best man in the world."

Two-? A woman and a man?

Arthur smiles. If it were any meaner, if it meant anything but good -- it would be condescending. It feels like the expression her governesses used to give her when she'd ask where Daddy was.

The draper comes back with bolts of cloth, some new things, explaining each.

Arthur ponders carefully as Mary drifts. Two spouses- Arthur was a bigamist? But no -- the bigamy she'd seen was just cheating, like having a mistress. This was all of them apparently married to each other -- and how did that work? Whose son was that son? And since when had Arthur Morgan been a homosexual -- and yet he's married to a woman?

And worst of all, when did he stop loving her?

"We all love each other," he says, responding to her thoughts, "We always have. And Jack loves us all -- I took care of him throughout his childhood."

Arthur picks the fabric with the hand of a man who knows what he's talking about. A very pretty blue fabric -- "enough to make a couple of vests and a skirt, please" -- with a delicate floral pattern sprayed along its surface. She doesn't even know what the - what his wife and- his husband? and his child look like, but the image of them all wearing the matching pattern is so charming.

She might start crying.

It was what she wanted.

What she'd wanted all along.

And it wasn't hers.

When she knew him -- what she knew of him, which she's realizing was never all of him -- he loved big and strong, with his whole heart. It was why it was difficult to reject him, turn him down, why she still could fall in love with him even now.

She felt his love radiating outwards towards her, but she'd never thought it went to anyone else. She never thought he ever loved anyone else. That he was just a loyal dog who followed her and howled at the moon when she wasn't there.

She did this to herself.

A smart part of her mind says - _fool, it wouldn't have worked;_ the jealous part screams - _you should have taken him when you could._

And the part of her that still loves him sighs and whispers to her _Look at how happy he is. You're so proud of him._

And she is.

He finishes. Pays. Takes the bundle of cloth in his hands with a smile, surely envisioning the garments his wife would make for the family, how they would all match.

When they're out on the street, when he helps her down from the porch, she can only just say -- "Why?"

Arthur smiles.

It's a nice smile. Even with years on him, maybe even especially with years on him, he is beautiful.

"It turns out, Mary, that I was always going to have a strange way of life. Even when I was being 'normal.'"

That wasn't- what she meant-

"But I'm happy, Mary. Isn't that enough?"

Arthur-

"Have a good day, Missus Abrams," he tips his hat to her.

He starts to walk away. It's done. It's over. The jealous part of her demands she follow him, see this "family" -- the smart part demands she stay, reflect.

The part of her in love with him still wins out.

"I'm happy for you!" she shouts. He startles back. "I'm happy for you, you fool!"

He pauses. And stares at her. And then...

He tips his hat, and mounts his horse.

And then he's gone.

Arthur Morgan, the love of her life, is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> I needed to write something that was happy.   
> These happy endings aren't necessarily stable - and they still have a lot of loss in them. Each universe is slightly different for each iteration. Feel free to ask about anything you are curious about!  
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated.


End file.
